Why, I’ve been to London to visit the queen.

Okay, no. Actually, I spent the holidays in Northern California watching the Russian River rise. Little or no cell coverage or email access to speak of.

Here are my top 5 albums of 2005 as promised:

1. Spoon - Gimme Fiction
2. Laura Veirs - Year Of Meteors
3. Idaho - The Lone Gunman
4. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
5. Mountain Goats - Sunset Tree

Of these, the only one you probably haven’t heard of is Idaho. Idaho is essentially a man named Jeff Martin. He rose to obscure indie fame in the middle to late 90’s making slowcore music (ala Red House Painters) on custom-made four-stringed guitars. I hopped on to the Idaho bandwagon during this time via a great album called “Three Sheets To The Wind”.

Still, I was unprepared for the beauty of “Lone Gunman”. Here Martin has all but ditched the guitars, opting instead for varied keyboard instruments. The result is a moody soundtrack with hooks. The press release for “Gunman” mentions the lyrical bent of the album and well, I can’t hear too much of it on there, but props to them for dissing George W anyway.

Its one of those sad indie music dramas that the blogosphere hasn’t blown wide open for this record. I would never even have heard about it if not for Usenet and a poster there who goes by Rusak. Thanks Rusak!

Idaho - Have To Be. Buy the cd from retrophonic.com
. Info on Idaho is available at idahomusic.com

Portland content: Here’s a page of “Lone Gunman” info courtesy of cdbaby.com, Portland’s indie-est record store.

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